


Protected

by Bookwormpride



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Priyanka is a good mother she's just a little overbearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 12:26:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15000869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookwormpride/pseuds/Bookwormpride
Summary: Priyanka just wants to keep Connie safe, but she can't protect her from everything.





	Protected

Priyanka did everything she could to ensure Connie's health and safety through her childhood - a strict diet free of trans fats and preservatives, slathering on sunscreen at even the hint of sunshine and a wide brimmed hat to protect her eyes, the right padding when learning to ride her bike - but there wasn’t much she could do about other children.

She watched from a bench at the edge of the sand while Connie clambered up to the highest level of the jungle gym with big, unsteady toddler steps as other kids ran past, occasionally bumping her on their way.

Finally Connie reached the top and leaned over the bar to wave to her mother with a bright smile. “Mommy, watch!” She called, and ran to the slide, the spiral one that was her favorite, and sat, giving herself a push down.

She emerged at the bottom, laughing with glee, and just as she was starting to stand a little boy who hadn’t waited his turn came down behind her.

The two fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Before Priyanka could even stand the boy was on his feet, stepping on Connie's fingers in his rush to get back to the stairs, leaving Connie picking herself up and starting to hiccup with sobs.

Priyanka reached her side and pulled Connie out of the way before she could get run over by more rowdy juveniles.

“Are you okay?” She asked, examining Connie's hand. Other than being a little red it looked fine, but Connie was still wailing, big tears rolling down her cheeks. “You’re alright, come here.” She said as she pulled Connie into her chest and hugged her. She carried her back to the bench and pulled out a drinking box from her bag.

While Connie calmed down Priyanka watched as the boy that had trampled her ran back to a woman sitting on the other side of the playground.

“Stay here, I’ll be right back,” Priyanka told Connie, giving her a quick pat on the head before marching over to the boys guardian.

“Hello,” She said brusquely. The woman looked up from the book she was reading. “Is that your son?” She asked, gesturing to the boy who was now climbing up the rope ladder.

“Yes?” The woman answered slowly.

“Well, you need to keep a better watch on your child, and teach him how to use the playground properly, he could have seriously injured my daughter a few minutes ago when he practically bulldozed over her on the slide,” Priyanka said, letting her irritation be clear in her tone.

The mother simply looked at her for a moment. “I’m sorry? It was probably an accident, he’s not always careful when he’s excited,” She laughed lightly. “You know how kids are.”

Priyanka didn’t laugh. “Maybe that's how  _ your  _ kids are, but that’s clearly a lack of parenting on your part.”

The mothers jaw dropped, her expression turning sour.

“Just tell your child to be more careful,” Priyanka finished, turning heal and walking back to where Connie still sat on the bench. “Are you ready to go home?” She asked her, more then ready to get back to a better controlled environment.

 

Priyanka did not appreciate being called away from work.

Being called away from work to drive to her daughter's school because there had been an incident in gym class? She liked that even less. 

Priyanka was well aware of the benefits of children taking physical education in school - increased focus in class, getting a solid foundation in many different sports, and of course the emphasis on the importance of exercise to health. She just didn’t understand why the games had to be so rough-and-tumble.

Walking into the administration office she saw Connie sitting in one of the chairs, and immediately noticed her lack of glasses, then the dried tear tracks on her cheeks, and the slight redness to her nose and forehead.

“What happened?” She asked the secretary behind the desk.

“Mom, it’s okay, I just got hit with a soccer ball, I’m fine,” Connie interrupted.

“Where are your glasses?” She asked.

“They got broken, ma’am, I’m sorry,” Connie admitted, shrinking slightly in her seat.

Priyanka sighed frustratedly, but truthfully she wasn’t too angry. Connie had had those glasses since she was five, and now at eight they were getting small on her- it had almost been time for replacements anyway.

Priyanka turned back to the secretary. “Can you call Mrs. Lewis down here? I want to speak with her.” She asked.

The secretary looked nervous but quickly called her over the PA system.

Mrs. Lewis was a fine teacher. Priyanka had had no qualms when Connie was put in her class at the beginning of the year. She was young, but Priyanka found her methods sound and her skills as good as any experienced teacher.

That didn’t stop her from taking her into one of the private rooms in the back of the admin office and laying into her about putting her daughter in harm's way. Didn’t they have rules about not kicking balls above waist height? Shouldn’t Priyanka have a reasonable expectation that her daughter would be safe and her glasses wouldn’t get broken in gym class? What if it had been more than her glasses that got damaged? She could have got a concussion, she could have broken her nose.

By the end of her lecture Mrs. Lewis had simply resigned herself to taking it in silence rather than arguing with her. After a pause while she waited to see if Priyanka was truly done she said, “I’ll put Connie in safer positions in PE from now, it won’t happen again, I’m sorry.”

Priyanka humphed, dropping her hands from where they had come to rest on her hips. “Fine. You’ll have to excuse Connie from class tomorrow, I’ll need to take her to the optometrist to get fitted for new glasses.”

She took Connie home, tended to her bruised forehead with ice, and got out her back-up glasses for her to wear for the rest of the day.

 

Moving towns was always hard on Connie. She liked routine and familiarity for one, and of course it was always tough being the new kid in school. She didn’t make friends easily, in fact she hadn’t had a good one since Kindergarten.

Priyanka  _ wanted  _ Connie to make friends, she wanted her to be happy, of course she did. She didn’t want Connie to come home crying again because she had spent recess alone, or because someone had called her a loser. And having friends was an important part of development at her age, and Priyanka feared she was falling behind in that area.

She just wished Connie wouldn’t go to such lengths to try and  _ make  _ friends.

Priyanka bit her tongue all the way to the hospital with Connie in the back seat, nursing a likely-broken arm, kept silent while the X-rays were done and her arm placed in a cast - turquoise, Connie's choice of color for the wrapping - then finally they were home.

“Sit down,” Priyanka said as soon as they were through the door.

Connie obediently took a seat at the kitchen table. She kept her eyes on her hands in her lap, and visibly took a breath, preparing for the scolding she knew was coming.

“So, you fell off the monkey bars, which you said you were  _ sitting  _ on top of, correct?” Priyanka demanded.

“Yes, ma’am,” Connie said quietly.

“Is that how you’re supposed to use monkey bars? I thought they were for swinging from, not sitting on.” Priyanka asked sarcastically.

“No, ma’am.” Connie agreed.

“So why were you using them that way?” Priyanka asked.

Connie took another deep breath. “Claire and all her friends were doing it and I- I just wanted to hang out with them too, so I…” She trailed off, not needing to finish the sentence. They both knew what had happened next.

Priyanka bit back the ‘ _ if Claire and her friends were jumping off a bridge would you do it too _ ’ remark, she didn’t want to be that stereotypical. 

She pulled out a chair at the opposite end of the table and sat. “I know you want to be friends with these girls, Connie, but you can  _ not  _ put yourself in danger just to prove you’re  _ ‘cool’  _ to them. I’m very disappointed in you, I thought you knew better.”

Connie nodded, dropping her eyes again. “Am… am I grounded?” She asked hesitantly.

Priyanka thought about it for a moment, and sighed. She was pretty sure Doug would agree with her on this, no need to wait for him to get home. “No, I think breaking your arm was consequence enough.” She said. Then nodded towards the living room. “Go on, go get started on your homework.”

Connie silently got up and took her books from her backpack, cradling them in one arm, and took off to the living room without another word.

Priyanka sat back in the chair, rubbing her face tiredly.

 

Priyanka was trying to be less controlling of Connie's life, she  _ really  _ was.

Finding out her daughter had been secretly training with one of her friends alien guardians to fight other aliens that wanted to destroy the Earth had shaken her. She felt like she barely knew her daughter at all any more. She wasn’t the precisely scheduled, always well behaved, timid little girl she had raised. Somewhere along the line Connie had changed, and Priyanka hadn’t noticed.

That scared her. Wasn’t that her job, as a parent, to know what her daughter was up to? To know that she was safe, and that if she wasn’t be there to help her? 

But Connie hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her, afraid of the repercussions if her mother ever found out about the life she was living when she visited Steven. Priyanka felt like she had failed. She had never meant for Connie to be scared of her, to make her daughter become secretive and sneaky.

So she was going to do better. Connie was quickly growing up, at twelve she had only a few more years until she was a teenager - and Priyanka did  _ not  _ want to deal with a dishonest one of those. 

And besides, Connie making her own choices in life was important, being independant was important - even if it was hard for Priyanka to step back and give her some control, knowing all the things that could go wrong. 

At least this way, with communication open between them, Priyanka could still guide her in the right direction.

That's why when Connie came home from sword training covered in scrapes and bruises Priyanka tried her best to stay calm.

“I’m fine, mom, really,” She insisted as Priyanka stopped her on her way to the kitchen and began inspecting her skinned elbow. 

In another time she would have got on the phone immediately, called Stevens guardian and chewing her out for her daughter coming home in such a state.

As it was, she took a deep breath and reminded herself - this was Connie's choice, she wanted to train with Steven and Pearl. She had to respect that.

“What were you  _ doing _ ?” Priyanka asked, making an effort to keep the judgement out of her voice.

“Just some drills with a couple of holo-Pearls,” Connie said as if it were a common activity for kids her age. Priyanka didn’t even know what a ‘holo-Pearl’ was.

“Do you want me to bandage them for you?” She asked.

“No thank you, ma’am, I can do it,” Connie said.

Priyanka dropped her elbow and Connie went off to the kitchen to get a drink, passing a few seconds later on her way upstairs with her duffle bag over her shoulder, the handle of the pink sword sticking out of the zipper, no stranger to Connie then carrying around her tennis racket.

That night Connie came down for dinner, covered in bandages and the bruises really starting to darken - and happier than Priyanka could remember seeing her.

 

Priyanka was not a patient woman. Her job was fast-paced, she always took the shortest line at the grocery store, she considered punctuality a must-have trait in anyone she was friends with.

Getting to Steven Universe's house and finding it completely empty of him and Connie, or even any of his family, Priyanka was slightly annoyed. She had been looking forward to getting home to Doug making dinner and having a relaxing evening in.

A few minutes later and they still hadn’t shown up, and Priyanka sat down on the couch (they had left the door unlocked, she couldn’t help but think how risky that was) and wrote out a text to her daughter.

Fifteen minutes of waiting and no response from Connie she tried phoning her, only to realize when she heard a buzzing from the other side of the room that her daughters phone was over on the window seat with her duffle bag.

Priyanka groaned and began drumming her fingers on her knee. She was going to have to have a talk with the gems about being on time when Priyanka was picking Connie up.

Half an hour after she had arrived she heard several pairs of feet coming up the porch steps accompanied by hushed voices. Priyanka stood, ready to let the gems know her displeasure with being made to wait the second the door opened.

But when it did any anger was knocked out of her, along with her breath.

Steven was being carried by Pearl, his complexion pale and his eyes closed, a crease between his eyebrows as his face scrunched up in pain. His shirt was pushed up to expose his stomach - and his gem, that Priyanka realized had a large crack weaving up the side of it.

And there was Connie, curled up in Garnets arms. Her breathing was shallow, and her skin beaded with sweat.

She was bleeding from a cut to the side of her abdomen.

Priyanka felt dizzy.

“Mom,” Connie breathed when she seen her.

“What- what happened?” She managed to choke out, her voice pitching oddly and sounding distant to her own ears.

“We were fighting a corrupted gem on the outskirts of town,” Pearl said, her voice wavering. “It- it wasn’t supposed to be that difficult but- Connie got hurt and Steven got cracked trying to protect her and- and his healing powers aren’t working-” She let out a sob and Steven cringed. She quickly stilled to avoid causing him more pain.

“We- we need to g-get them to the hospital-” Priyanka said, taking an unsteady step towards the door on legs that suddenly felt like led. Maybe phoning an ambulance would be better? She didn’t like how much blood Connie was losing. She wasn’t even sure what to do about Steven- how do you heal a cracked gem? Was there a specialist for that kind of thing?

“Woah,” Amethyst said, holding out her arms as if to catch Priyanka if she started to fall. “It’s okay, we’ve got this-”

“How, in any way, do you ‘ _ have this _ ’?!” Priyanka exclaimed. 

“We can heal them,” Garnet said. “We are taking them to Ro-”

“Are any of you doctors? No, you don’t know what you’re  _ doing _ . You’re not taking them anywhere except to the hospital,” Priyanka snapped, incredulous that they would think they could get away with dragging her daughter off to who-knows-where in such a condition.

“We don’t have time for this-” Pearl started.

“Mom,” Connie called, just loud enough to get her attention. She spoke through gritted teeth, wincing. “They know what to do just- just trust them.” 

“Connie-”

“Mom,” She said stubbornly, and met her eyes. There was no uncertainty in them, no fear. She trusted whatever it was the gems were going to do to work. Connie knew more about the gems world then her. She had to trust them too.

Pearl walked over to the shining disk in the cave at the back of Stevens house and stepped on, quickly followed by the others who seemed to have decided they weren’t going to wait for Priyanka any longer.

She quickly rushed to join them.

As the pad below them started to glow she caught on to Connie's hand. It was cold, and shaking, but Connie gave her hand a quick squeeze. “It’s going to be okay,” She promised.

Priyanka hated that her daughter was comforting her while she was hurt, wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around? But she was grateful for the assurance all the same.

The light deposited them in a valley between cliffs, and the gems quickly began towards a structure a few feet away.

As they walked Priyanka noticed the way the gems looked at Steven; The way Pearls eyes flitted over his gem and then to his face, how the corners of Garnets lips turned downwards despite her otherwise stoic expression, the fear in Amethysts gaze.

Priyanka had never been entirely sure how to think of Stevens guardians, were they sisters? Aunts? Mentors? But Priyanka knew that look, it was the same one she seen everyday in the emergency room, and the same one she probably wore herself right then. It was the look of someone fearing for their child's life.

She also seen how Garnet carefully stepped so as not to jostle Connie; was surprised when Amethyst, who had always seemed like the least nurturing of the group, turned back on the stairs to quietly tell her that she was doing great and they were almost there. Could see the tenderness in the action as Pearl reached over and gently brushed Connie's hair back from her sweat-damp forehead with the arm that wasn’t carrying Steven. 

All the anger at the gems for putting her daughter in harm's way, for letting her get injured, disappeared as she realized: they loved Connie too. They were as worried about her as they were for their own child. They didn’t want to see her hurt any more then Priyanka did. Priyanka wasn’t the only one who cared about her.

Through a star-shaped hole in the wall they emerged in front of a fountain, water spilling from the eyes of a statue of the same woman in the portrait above Stevens door, rose petals drifting through the wind and floating in the water, the air smelled faintly floral, and the trickle of water was calming.

The gems wasted no time in kneeling by the fountains edge while Priyanka hovered nervously behind them. Pearl and Garnet lowered the children in with their hands underneath them, supporting them.

As the water covered Stevens gem the stone began to glow, and Priyanka watched the fissure running through it began to fill until it was as if there had never been a crack at all.

Connie’s healing was less magical, but impressive all the same. The deep, bleeding cut in her side instantly closed up without even a blemish or scar as a reminder, even the bloodied water around her was fading as if the fountain was removing any trace that the injury had happened.

And just like that Connie and Steven were pulling away from Garnet and Pearls grasps, Connie examining her side with relief while Steven sunk below the water and came up with a splash in Connies direction, causing the both of them to laugh.

Connie climbed out of the fountain, smiling at the gems as they patted her head and touched her shoulder and muttered their joy, before she looked at Priyanka and her eyes turned watery.

Priyanka dropped to her knees and pulled Connie into her arms, wrapping around her as if she never wanted to let go, as if she could protect her from ever getting hurt again, from ever scaring her like that again-

She could feel Connie shaking. When she spoke her voice was thick. “I’m sorry, mom, I’m sorry.”

Priyanked squeezed her tighter, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Shh,” Priyanka soothed, running her hand up and down Connie's back. “I love you Connie, I love you so much.”

And as she hugged her daughter, not even caring about the fact that her work clothes were getting wet, she raised her gaze to the Crystal Gems, and the last words she would have ever expected to hear herself say to someone who had let her daughter get hurt came out.

“Thank you.”


End file.
